


Notes From the Barn

by enchin



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 03:17:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enchin/pseuds/enchin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You never know what someone is thinking...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Notes From the Barn

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to post a disclaimer right off the bat: I have just started watching this show (and immediately dope-slapped myself for waiting so long!) and I've only seen the pilot, a few trailers, and some behind the scenes vids on YouTube. If, in the course of plot development, the particular issue I write about here is discovered or handled another way, I haven't had the pleasure of seeing it yet. Having said that, after just the few viewings I was completely inspired to write this little snapshot. I Hope it's entertaining as a stand-alone fic, and I look forward to finding out if I was on the right track!

I have a name. It’s Kendra. Kendra Park. I’m 42 years old. And I’m dead.

You’ve seen, I’m sure, our muscle memory, remembered moves. Using a doorknob; reaching out for a familiar object; the tilting of the head as if we just might be about to speak. Clumsy and incomplete, but still: those things are echoes of who we used to be.

But here’s what you don’t know: we are in here fully. As we once were. Alert and aware. We can know who we are.

Sometimes.

The rest of the time there’s this—hunger. It is everything.

It’s universal. (I used to use that word quite a bit, as I was a teacher. I taught science in a high school, and I made it fun. I’d pepper my lectures with words I knew they’d laugh over: ‘universal,’ ‘stupendous,’ ‘colossal.’ Sometimes I’d even burst into song. Anything to get their attention. They laughed at me but they remembered the material. I think I was a popular teacher.) What I mean to say is, when we're hungry that's all there is. It's universal. All over. All over me. There isn't anything else.

I was married to a woman named Corinne, who also taught at the high school. English. We found each other late: she was 41, I was 38. I loved my life and my work. I loved my wife and every new school year. But now, bigger than teaching the wonder of outer space, or the somewhat sadistic enjoyment I got from watching teenagers recoil from dissection, bigger than loving Corinne, is my hunger. It propels me.

I don’t feel much else, physically. My sight is normal, nothing much has changed there. Speech is out of the question, although I vocalize. But my hearing? It’s like nothing I ever knew. It doesn’t deteriorate. As a matter of fact I’d swear it’s getting _better_. I can hear a car door slam from five city blocks away. I can hear a living being breathe at one block. I can hear their heart beat at five feet. And the more we hear, the more ravenous we become, if that’s possible. Sound activates our hunger. It’s what pulls us, blindly, to you. Somehow we all know which noises come from the living.

I don’t know what the others think, but I am so, so, fucking sorry.

I said we’re in here. This is what I meant: it happens just after eating, sometimes. Rarely. For a couple of minutes, before the hunger (which never quite leaves) overpowers us again. For perhaps 120 seconds I‘m myself again. I’m able to look at myself and my companions, and shudder. I horrify myself because I _am_ myself. But any humanity I have left is soon overtaken by blind craving, and I start walking again.

This is insane. No one can hear my goddamn thoughts! And if they could I doubt they’d be sympathetic.

This has only happened twice. The first time I became conscious I was slumped against a wall, resting or waiting, I’m not sure which. Beside me lay the remains of my last meal. I looked at my hands. They looked normal, as I remembered them, albeit filthy with blood. Today is the second time. I came awake standing under a loft with hay falling on me. The first thing I noticed was sunlight filtering through cracks in the wall, illuminating the falling hay. Beautiful. Anyway, I must have bumped the support beam. I’m now looking at my hands and I can see bones showing through rotted holes. How long has it been?

I’ve just caught the eye of a tall man with half a face. (And how is my face?) With shock I saw the same self-loathing I possess, the same terror, in the desperate look in his eyes. We walk in hell. If we could cry, we would. I think we would wail. For about 120 seconds.

I can remember, maybe a minute ago, attacking an old woman. She was hiding behind some stacked bales, but I heard her. I grabbed her from behind as she ran and tore at her right forearm, but I was knocked out of the way. Still, I have something in my stomach, which is why I’m lucid. As the others covered her I heard her scream “John!” before the pile of bodies fell through the floor, down to what may be a root cellar in this old barn. (Whoever went down with her will finish her. If by some slim chance they don't she’ll burn out with fever and die; sometime after that she’ll pull herself up and out, if she can, but by then we won’t be interested. She will no longer sound the same). Right after she fell we heard something else: the living. The living, right outside. And that’s when I came awake.

I wish I could tell someone what I know. Someone must be working on this. I wish I could help, They could use me, if it could find a cure for the fever. I’d die for that. Again.

I find myself growing restless.

I can hear the sound of guns being cocked, small crackles of trampled grass, blood rushing through veins. I wouldn’t swear to it, but I think I heard a motion, the hum of displaced air as from a quick gesture. I take a step.

I consider these thoughts my journal. Unsaved and unpublished, forgotten until the next time I come awake. Already they’re slipping away. I don’t have much time. I feel the pull, the crazy greed!

Now we are outside! There’s yelling, shooting. I’ve been hit, but it’s only in my heart. _With this heart I loved Corinne._

A woman is screaming “Sophie!” _Nothing matters._ I’ll get to them! I will!

_Please._

_One last thought before I—_


End file.
